by Eileen Wilks
"She's been staying with you, I understand," Jackie said.
"Yes."
Her eyes were calm. Cop's eyes. Her body language was pure challenge. "What kind of security do you have at that big house of yours?"
"Good enough that I plan to buy the company that makes it."
"You do, huh?" She lofted one eyebrow at him. "Don't let her go anywhere alone."
"I won't." He was grimly certain of that.
"Hey." Claire waved a hand between the two of them. "I haven't turned invisible, have I? You two might try talking to me, instead of around me."
"All right." The sergeant's face split in a generous grin. "Speaking directly to you – don't go anywhere alone. Sit tight in this man's house behind that good security system, and don't make me worry about you."
"I don't think that's such a good idea."
Something all too similar to panic slithered in Jacob's gut, hot and unwanted. "You'll stay with me."
"There are three other people living in your house."
Her friend rolled her eyes. "This is a good thing. The more people around you, the better."
"Not if Ken's delusional. He doesn't care who he hurts. I shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. I shouldn't have gone to that party." She hugged her arms to her. "Ken's parents saw me with Jacob there. If they have any sense they won't say anything to Ken about it, but…"
Jacob grimaced. "But you can't count on that pair for sense."
"I know what Ken will think. What he thinks anytime I come within breathing distance of a man. I can't go back to Jacob's house. Ada might not be in danger, but there's Cosmo, Jacob's secretary. He lives there, too."
Jackie shook her head. "Where you going to go, then? Not back to your house. You aren't that stupid. But your mom's in California, and your uncle isn't an option."
"I … thought I might stay with you again."
"You know you're welcome, but he knows that's where you stayed last time. Besides, I'm gone more than I'm home."
"She'll stay with me," Jacob repeated. That slippery feeling was back, making his voice harsh. Lust, he decided.
That was what had his gut twisting.
Claire slanted him a haughty look, duchess to peon. "I don't think so."
Her expression made him want to smile. Her stubbornness made him want to shake her. And his gut twisted tighter. "If you're worried about what happened earlier, don't. I'm not going to jump you."
"Ah…" She darted a quick glance at Jackie's interested face. "That isn't the point. I won't put other people in danger."
"Just yourself? Are you going to stop going to the convenience store? And the grocery store, the gas station – everywhere there are other people?"
"I – that's different. Ken isn't some crazed sniper with a grudge against the world. He just…" It was barely visible, the slight shiver that broke into her words. But Jacob noticed it. "He's fixated on me, not the lunch crowd at McDonald's."
"We don't know what he'll do to get to you." He paused, letting that sink in. Maybe Lawrence was sane enough to avoid attacking her in public. If not, an old lady standing next to her in the checkout line at Fun's might be in as much danger as anyone she lived with. "I'm not exactly helpless, and have you looked at Cosmo? The man could bench-press a tank. You don't have to protect him. Or me."
She shook her head. "Unless you can grab bullets out of the air with your bare hands, you're just as vulnerable to a gun as anyone else. So is Cosmo."
"North can post some guards. Between them and the existing security systems, Lawrence won't get close enough to shoot anyone."
"Adam North?" Jackie asked, interested. At Jacob's nod she said, "He's good. Listen to this man, Claire. He's right. You're wrong."
"But—"
"But nothing. He's your boss, right?" Jackie's smile was sly. "For once, do what you're told."
Claire threw up a hand. "All right. All right – though you're enjoying this far too much, I agree. Once I've found Sheba, I'll go to Jacob's and stay there."
"You aren't going back to your house until Lawrence is behind bars," Jacob said. "I'll see that you get your cat."
"Jacob, I appreciate your willingness to shed blood for a good cause, but she won't let you touch her."
"I'm not going to pick her up. My brother is."
Her brows knit. "I thought Michael had left the city."
"My other brother. Luke. He could teach the Pied Piper how to charm beasts. I called him earlier and asked him to get your cat."
"The thing is, Sheba doesn't like men. Any men. I even have to take her to a female vet. I think some man must have mistreated her before I found her. She won't come to your brother, and if he finds her, she won't let him catch her."
"She'll like Luke." Animals and women all liked Luke. Especially the wounded ones. "It won't hurt to let him try."
"At least tell the poor man she's had all her shots," She started to pace, stopping near the door that read Hospital Personnel Only to frown up at the clock. "Do you think that thing is broken?"
Jacob didn't answer. Jackie did, but he didn't listen. Claire didn't need to know the correct time. She needed to know her cousin was going to be all right, and neither of them could tell her that.
He watched her resume her pacing, watched as she and the cop exchanged a few words – some kind of private joke, he guessed. It seemed to involve a coach they'd once had, and Claire's stubbornness. He watched her smile, her shoulders stiff and her face tight with fear, and give her friend a reassuring hug.
The hot, coiled feeling inside him wound tighter. "I won't let him get to you," he said suddenly.
She met his eyes. The shadows in hers were deep. "Ken has put two men in the hospital because of me. If you've got any heroing urges left over from when you were fourteen, squelch them. You understand? That's the last thing I need."
He nodded. He had no desire to play hero. He was just going to keep her safe. "There's one other thing you'll need to consider. Later, though. Not tonight."
She sighed. "What's that?"
"I want you to marry me."
Her jaw dropped. She was staring at him in utter, blind shock when the door behind her opened and a man with thinning hair, a ruddy complexion and blue scrubs stepped out.
"Ms. McGuire?" he said.
The shock chilled on her face. She turned, and Jacob couldn't see her expression, only the rigid set of her back.
The surgeon smiled. "Good news."
* * *
Chapter 8
«^»
Dallas was never truly quiet. Even at four in the morning, headlights still lined the Expressway, while other lights glowed in stores and on street corners to discourage vandals and prowlers. But the cars were fewer, and the houses were dark.
Claire watched the lights blur as they approached, turn singular and distinct as they passed, then vanish behind them. She was all but hypnotized by motion and weariness, yet she couldn't sleep. Her thoughts turned slowly in a gummy mass, one stuck to the next in no apparent order.
There was no wind in her face to force her awake. Jacob had put the top up before they left the hospital.
Jacob.
Once Danny was in recovery, she'd tried to get Jacob to go home. He'd ignored that. Pretty much the way she'd ignored his crazy proposal.
He hadn't mentioned it again, thank God. She didn't want to deal with it, with him, with the kaleidoscopic confusion she felt every time she thought of it.
She couldn't stop thinking of it.
One other thing you'll need to consider, he'd said. I want you to marry me.
It was absurd. No one proposed in such a way, at such a time. In a hospital waiting room, for heaven's sake. With her cousin in surgery. And Jackie standing right there, eyes popping and mouth dropped open.
Claire would have liked to convince herself he hadn't meant it. That it had been some sort of bizarre joke, or an offer made impulsively out of concern, one he would be happy to forget. He hadn't mentioned
it again, after all. But he had meant it. Her certainty on that score was almost as baffling as his blasted proposal. However little sense it made, Jacob West wanted to marry her.
But why? He didn't act like a man who thought he was in love. His offer to marry her had to rank in the top ten of the most unromantic proposals ever made. That why puzzled her into exhaustion, but her response to the ridiculous proposal was more than puzzling. It scared her spitless.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest, but thought followed sticky thought, taking her where she didn't want to go.
"I'll love you forever." Ken had told her that the first night they met. She remembered his voice – a clear, true tenor that used to be raised in choir at his church. She remembered too much. Opening her eyes, she stared out at the blur of lights and the huddled dark houses.
She didn't want anyone in love with her, ever again. Friendship, caring – those lasted. Love was too much like insanity.
Ken Lawrence wasn't the only man who'd ever written his own needs and desires onto the template of her face, of course. But he was the only one who'd convinced her what he felt was real. She'd paid dearly for that mistake. So had others. Danny…
"Can't sleep?" Jacob asked.
His voice was deep and quiet in the darkness. It should have been soothing. It wasn't. "My mind's buzzing."
"The surgeon said your cousin's chances for a complete recovery are excellent."
The man had explained the surgery carefully, but the medical jargon had sheeted off her anxious mind like water, leaving little more than his assurance that Danny was alive, that no critical areas of the brain had been damaged, and that she could see Danny for a few minutes once he was out of recovery.
"He opened his eyes," she said. "When they let me in to see him. He opened his eyes, and he knew me." He'd been hooked up to all sorts of beeping and humming machines, his body thin and helpless beneath the sheet, his face bloodless as death. But he'd opened his eyes when she held his hand. He'd looked right at her and known she was there.
"That's a good sign."
Claire tried to hold on to the image of Danny's blue eyes, dazed by pain and drugs, but aware. Other worries nudged it away. Like the practical question of how she was going to pay that surgeon for his work. She'd put herself down as being responsible for the bill.
"How did you and the sergeant become friends, anyway?" Jacob asked, swinging off the interstate to the access road.
She seized the subject gladly. "Basketball. I tried out for the team in the eighth grade. My mother wanted me to be a cheerleader, but I didn't want to stand on the sidelines and cheer for other people." She smiled reminiscently. "Jackie was about twenty times better than me – or anyone else. Not just because of her height, either. She's fast. She moves so smoothly you don't realize how fast she's going until the backwash hits. So, being hopelessly outclassed, naturally I spent most of that year trying to beat her."
He chuckled. "You did mention something about being competitive. That led to you becoming friends?"
"I can't take much credit for it. Jackie could see I wasn't much of a threat, bless her, so she never took the competition thing seriously. Lord, that used to tick me off. I was so intense back then. Jackie was, too, but not about basketball. Even then, she knew where she was going, what she wanted to be. A cop."
"You admire her."
"Of course."
"Eighth grade … that was the year your father died, wasn't it?"
Her smile faded. "Yes. It was."
He slowed and stopped at the last traffic light before reaching the West mansion … or manor. Or castle. Here, the houses were dark except for an occasional porch light, the streets echoingly empty.
"My mother died when I was five."
Startled, she swung her head to look at him. His face was limned by the dash lights, a harsh collection of angles that told her nothing. "That's terribly young to lose a parent."
"Yes. My situation was different from yours, of course. My parents were divorced, and I'd been living with my father since I was three."
Yes, his situation had been different. Jacob's mother had left him twice – once through the divorce, and again in the most final parting. "At any age, death feels like abandonment. At least at fourteen I knew that my father hadn't meant to leave me."
The light changed. He flicked her an unreadable glance and accelerated smoothly. "I wasn't looking for sympathy."
"Sympathy and understanding aren't the same thing."
"I did want you to understand. I don't believe in divorce when children are involved, not unless the situation is dangerous or unhealthy for the children."
"Ah…"
"The possibility of children exists, however careful we might be."
Her stomach hollowed – and her eyebrows snapped down. "You're jumping to one hell of a conclusion."
"I'm not assuming you'll marry me. I'm not assuming a blasted thing, which is why I want to discuss things like children and our respective attitudes about divorce. The last time I asked a woman to marry me, I thought I knew what she wanted from marriage, I was wrong."
"The last time?" she asked faintly.
"I had planned to marry a woman I knew well. Unfortunately she turned me down."
A bubble of feeling rose quickly, and burst. Claire couldn't help it. She started laughing.
He frowned. "I do seem to be amusing you regularly tonight."
"I'm laughing at myself, not you." He hadn't fallen for her – not for her face, much less the person behind the face. No, he had, apparently, decided to get married, but love had nothing to do with his decision. This would teach her to jump to conclusions based on ego and … just ego, she told herself firmly. Nothing else could be involved. Not this fast.
"So I'm your second choice, am I? No, wait – don't answer that." She grinned. "If I was farther down the list than number two, I don't want to know."
"I don't have a list." He sounded irritated. "I have a reason for wanting to marry quickly, but I do not have a list of prospective brides."
"Just two of us, then." Her mirth was fading. "Jacob, I'm sorry I laughed. And I do appreciate the honor you've done me, but—"
"I'd rather you didn't give me an answer yet." He pulled into the long driveway that led to his house. "You've had a rough night. I hadn't intended to bring this up yet…" His voice drifted off in what might have been bafflement. "I spoke on impulse, but the offer is genuine."
"I suppose you were carried away by the emotion of the moment."
"You're still laughing." He reached up to hit the button that opened the garage door.
"If you knew what had been going through my mind…"
"You might try telling me."
"A lot of nonsense, that's all."
He didn't speak as they pulled up inside the huge garage. He didn't say a word while they got out of the car and started down the path that led to the house. The moon was down, and the world was four-in-the-morning cold and quiet.
When he did speak, he sounded disgusted. "My timing was lousy, wasn't it? You've got a crazy man stalking you. When I sprang that proposal on you, you were afraid I'd become fixated on you, too. You don't have to worry. I'm not Ken Lawrence."
"No, you're not." He was strong, whole where Ken had been shattered by forces Claire had never understood. And yet… "Ken proposed to me on our second date."
"Do you really think I'm like Lawrence, or do you need to keep reminding yourself of him for some reason?"
Maybe she did need to remember Ken, how believable he'd been. How much she'd wanted to believe in him. Claire sighed. As if she'd breathed out the last of the night's strength along with that breath, she wobbled between one step and the next.
His hand was there immediately, gripping her elbow, steadying her. "I've handled this poorly. We can talk in the morning."
"In the morning…" Discouragement and fear hit in equal measures. "In the morning, I'll have to give you my resignation." And go so
mewhere. Right now she had no idea where.
"You promised your friend you'd stay with me."
"That was before you proposed and I turned you down. That sort of thing doesn't make for a good working relationship."
"You haven't turned me down yet."
"Not for lack of trying," she said dryly.
"Even if you do decide not to marry me, you can't quit. I need you. And you need to stay here, where I can keep you safe."
Why? Why did he want to keep her safe? Why did he want to marry her? "I don't understand why you're doing this."
He kept his hand on her elbow as they stepped onto the flagstone patio. There were two back doors – one that opened onto the library, one to the kitchen. He steered her toward the library door. "Let's have a drink."
"What?" Surprise broke into a laugh. "Now?"
He unlocked the French door and tapped a code into the small box set high on the inside wall by the door. She shook her head as she followed him into the darkened library. "Jacob, it's after four in the morning. I'm wiped out. I don't want to stay up and socialize."
"I don't think you'll be able to sleep until you've had some answers. Besides, you put away enough of the high-test sludge that passes for coffee at the hospital to keep you buzzing, however tired you are. A drink might help you relax."
It would be simple to be sensible. To tell him good-night and walk down the hall to her room, where she could pull off her clothes and fall into bed … alone.
She stayed. She wasn't sure why. There was something seductively pleasant about being alone with him in the sleeping house, the darkness softened by a single puddle of light from the wall sconce he'd switched on. Maybe she was too tired to move, drugged by events and exhaustion into an odd passivity. Walking away seemed as if it would take tremendous effort.
Yet she wasn't sleepy. Brain-dead and aching for rest, yes, but her mind kept turning over the same gummy thoughts.
Maybe a drink wasn't a bad idea, she thought when he approached her with a half-filled glass in each hand. It might lubricate those sticky thoughts, letting them slide right out of her head so she could sleep.